


Darling, We're All Outta Time (Timelines, However, Are In)

by nic_takes_Ls (nic_L)



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: (ik), :), Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, But also, Canon Compliant, Far Future, Gen, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Karl is a time traveller, Memory Loss, One-Shot, Ranboo-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Time Travel, and this one, dadbur, of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-16 17:59:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28586112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nic_L/pseuds/nic_takes_Ls
Summary: The one in which Ranboo is from the future. I mean, there'ssomereason he has so much to forget.AKA:The future could've been worse but Karl makes DreamSMP canon with his time-fuckery.
Relationships: Karl Jacobs & Wilbur Soot, Ranboo & Karl Jacobs, Ranboo & Wilbur Soot
Comments: 24
Kudos: 310





	Darling, We're All Outta Time (Timelines, However, Are In)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karmicpunishment](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karmicpunishment/gifts).



> HAPPY BIRHTDAY MEL U BEAUTIFUL MOTHERFUCKER YOUUU <3
> 
> ILYSM
> 
> HAPPY BIRTHDAAYY NOW PREPARE FOR ANGST STREAMS IN LIKE 15 HOURS LMAOOO
> 
> \----------
> 
> -yes, ranboo does not start off with his half-coloured appearance  
> -yes, Ranboo does live in a timeline of an almost post-apocalyptic Dream SMP at least 172 years into the future  
> -mobs and other humans/hybrids essentially don't exist in the DSMP area, Ranboo and Wilbur are the only living creatures around.  
> -Wilbur, as a ghost, essentially raised Ranboo and they were each other's only source of interaction until Karl  
> -starts very au and manages to become canon compliant lmao

“So- You’re completely sure this is safe for other people to use, right Karl?”  
  
  
Ranboo asks the strangely clothed man for the 7th time. Karl doesn’t even bother to look up from his task of painting the giant green spiral on the raised platform.   
  
  
“Yes, Ranboo. Wilbur’s library and my very expensive, may I remind you, my very expensive trip to go get the other books have us covered. Do you need to ask another 10 times or do you want to try Ghostbur this time?”   
  
  
Ranboo feels his cheeks flush ~~(it’s always some sort of violent green shade)~~ and attempts to laugh it off.   
  
  
“Yea, yea, I know, sorry.”   
  
  
“Don’t be.” Karl rises to his feet and shakes his hand, the excess lime dye staining his hands. “Well. I’m prepared. Go get Ghostbur and do- whatever you need to do, I guess. Talk, probably.”  
  
  
It always leaves Ranboo slightly off-kilter everytime he hears Karl refer to Wilbur as Ghostbur- though he supposes it’s true, but the disorientation from that is nothing next to the pit in his stomach, a writhing ball of worry and dread and anticipation and a small amount of excitement once more covered in anxiety.   
  
  
“Right.” He says, and wrings both of his night-sky-black hands together, presses the nails of one hand into the other. “I’ll- I’ll be right back.”   
  
  
Karl gives a wave, and Ranboo once again finds it weird to have to look down at someone, to see a humanoid figure that isn’t grey and transparent. He wonders if Karl looks anything like how Wilbur must’ve when he was alive. He shakes it off and instead glances around at his surroundings in the evening shadows, his home-  
  
  
A barren land of age-old ruins and moss-covered formations that were once homes. The crater that has grown ever wider through the decades from the weathering of the wind and the rain and the sea that laps at its stone. The most complete building is the half-sunken brick walls that made something called a ‘Community House’ and was built before Wilbur had even moved there. There isn’t a wall that comes as high as Ranboo’s head.   
  
  
Further in the distance are clusters of even less-well preserved memories of cities, of nations and homes, and there isn’t a single standing building among them all.   
  
  
Ranboo lets himself still on a stone jutting out of the earth, looks down at the place he’s lived ever since he can remember.   
  
  
There’s a swish of barely-there-air and Ranboo sees Wilbur flicker in at the edge of his peripheral vision.   
  
  
The only other person he’s known ever since he can remember.  
  
  
“It won’t hurt me, you know.” Wilbur says pointlessly, a ghostly breeze perpetually tugging at his bangs.   
  
  
“I- I know.” Ranboo turns his head fully, and Wilbur is gazing back, warmth in those cool grey eyes, feet hovering off the ground to meet his height. The translucent cloak of blue Wilbur’s always worn looks as pristine as ever. “I just- I know I won’t remember I’ve forgotten, but it still hurts to think about now. You don’t even know if you’ll be around. If you are we won’t remember each other.” His voice breaks slightly on the last word.  
  
  
“I think somehow, if we’re both there, we’ll know it. Eventually.” Wilbur answers back.  
  
  
“Eventually? Like ghosts?”   
  
  
Wilbur laughs, and the familiar noise of it soothes Ranboo, somehow.   
  
  
“Not like ghosts. At least for you. I just- It feels like something I’ll just get a feeling of, you know? Plus the whole ‘sacrifice for another life’ thing, I’d imagine there’s some sort of magic rebound shit there.”   
  
  
Ranboo makes a breathy chuckle and then sighs.   
  
  
“I just- It feels like- I know Karl can travel through time and all, but me? And you- We’re going to be able to live in and change the past, and that’s so wild to imagine. 173 _years._ ”   
  
  
“173 years.” Wilbur says, quieter, as if confirming it to himself. “Yes. I should be taken right back to seconds after I detonated this place, but instead of escaping to live another 10 years in the woods and watch society begin their collapse, I should end up dead and you arrive around a week or so later. And from there- From there the future hopefully gets better.”  
  
  
“Yeah.” Ranboo swallows hard.   
  
  
“You’ll be able to see other humans and hybrids.” Wilbur says, as if that will make the wetness in Ranboo’s eyes go away.   
  
  
“I know. My eyes are just sweaty.”   
  
  
“Mine too. If I could sweat. And if it weren’t fucking winter, but mine too.”  
  
  
 ~~The last survivor in a ruin and the last ghost~~ , ~~the child who woke up alone and the spirit who raised him,~~ ~~the found child and the decades-patient parent~~ , the pair make their way back to Karl’s ritual circle silently and slowly, Wilbur’s hardly tangible hand around Ranboo’s wrist the entire time and just before they round a corner, Wilbur presses a cold kiss to Ranboo’s forehead, a butterfly-soft touch of air.   
  
  
Karl is waiting cross-legged on a stone stair once he comes into view, standing when Wilbur floats ahead and greets him.   
  
  
Ranboo thinks it’s crazy to believe that this- this living person was alive and friends with Wilbur oh so long ago, and even with the knowledge that Karl’s a time traveller it’s still hard to fathom. Karl doesn’t seem to like looking around the landscape- His eyes skitter over the wreckage and in a few places widen even if he’s been staring at them all day, as if waiting to see something there.   
  
  
When Karl first arrived from- literally nowhere, just stumbled through Wilbur two days ago and screeched, Ranboo had originally thought he was one of the rare ‘mobs’ that used to be prevalent years ago, but the discovery that this was a human had left Ranboo reeling.   
  
  
And then Karl had announced that he’d finally found rituals on how to change the timeline itself- (and apparently had talked to Wilbur’s ghost a decade or so before Ranboo had shown up) offered him a chance to change his life and the fate of the land around him, and-  
  
  
And Ranboo and Wilbur accepted.   
  
  
And now it’s time to go.  
  
  
Karl makes Wilbur and Ranboo kneel on the floor with him, dips one finger into the green dye he keeps in a jar. Wilbur focuses and his hand becomes opaque, Karl holds it gently and paints the same spiral mark as the ritual circle onto his palm. It glows before turning grey.

  
  
“Ranboo?”   
  
  
Ranboo keeps his hand clutched until Wilbur nods, and then Karl is brushing the back of his hand with the shudderingly cold paint. The spiral seems to dry immediately and fades the same grey of Wilbur on his ink-dark skin.    
  
  
“Come on.” Karl pulls Ranboo to his feet and positions Wilbur and Ranboo, making minute adjustments that Ranboo would hiss is just for show except for the stagnant anxiety in his chest.    
  
  
“Now, since this is a timeline change, Wilbur, you have to die in order to let Ranboo live in a different time that he was born. But you know that. And- Your memories, you guys probably won’t-”   
  
  
“We know, Karl.” Ranboo lets his tail wrap around his leg, a nervous tic he just can’t shake. “We- We know.”    
  
  
“Right. And the me you see there won’t know who you are or anything, he doesn’t have the ability to time travel or anything yet. I mean- You won’t remember anyways, I’m just rambling-”   
  
  
“Karl!” Wilbur snaps his fingers. “Please?”   
  
  
Karl meets both of their eyes.    
  
  
“Right.”   
  
  
Ranboo’s expecting some sort of chant, some slow and long-bearing sequence, a shock of lightning, something-   
  
  
But Karl waves and Wilbur has his mouth open, about to say something to Ranboo- But Ranboo is gone.    
  
  


* * *

  
  
“Oh- Where? Where am I?”   
  
  
Ranboo opens his eyes to a roof of- trees? Pine trees? The sky is very blue and that seems odd and so do his hands when he pushes himself up to his feet.    
  
  
One is black and the other pale white and he’s not sure if that’s right.    
  
  
There are many other things that seem odd, as he journeys from the pine woods to a strange city on stilts and over a crater that seems familiar, and people seem especially jarring and so is that fact that he seems to have a very bad memory.    
  
  
Ranboo’s often told he acts like he’s from another time period entirely, when he does something wrong or gets confused by something everyone else understands. He doesn’t mind.   
  
  
Everyday is another double take at one thing or another, and there is a very long moment of silence and staring when Ranboo meets Tommy’s dead ghost brother rather appropriately named Ghostbur.   
  
  
But seconds later the both of them break into a smile and if there’s something tugging in the back of both of their minds then they keep it quiet and simply get along rather easily later on, traveling through a snowy plains one day and both traveling back and forth through ‘sides’ and quietly speaking about a dream that ‘you were in, for some reason.’   


**Author's Note:**

> woo my first ranboo pov fic also was made in like one sitting oops


End file.
